year is "Julietta", Almodóvar's 2017 work, adapted from three novels "Chance", "Hurry" and "Silence" in Alice Munro's novel "Escape" . These three novels are independent and connected with each other, which is similar to the existence of a trilogy. I have to admit, I went to this movie for Monroe, not Almodovar—Alice Monroe was the subject of a book report in 2014 or 2015.
The feelings of the year may be worth recalling and describing again. At the time I thought Monroe was telling stories like this: Juliet, a college student in classics, took a train trip in which a man committed suicide and fell in love with another man, Eric; Juliet lived with Eric and later Eric dies unexpectedly; Juliet and Eric's daughter run away as adults. What is particularly impressive is the heroine's "classical" identity setting, and the quiet tone of the narrative in dealing with the incident of "daughter's runaway" and its subsequent impact - it makes people delusionally think that this is not something worthwhile. An event that is branded with an emotionally charged word.
The deep memory of "classics" is more or less self-related. It's like encountering similar people in different time and space, and unconsciously began to compare: she has also read Homer and ancient Greece, how does she feel about these works? And what kind of life did people who read Homer and ancient Greece lead? The latter is the question I want to know more, and Juliet is a typical existence on this point, "That's because I like it. I just like everything related to this science. I really like it". She plunged into it, fascinated by the discipline itself—not its extended appeal, such as "elegant," "esoteric," or "different." As a result, the classics also naturally infiltrated into life, even entangled with her own life trajectory. It's like she can always think about ancient Greece from the scenery outside the train window, or when she completely devoted herself to the study of classical studies in middle age, she gave up the topic of her doctoral dissertation and turned to a book about "daughter running away" from ancient Greece. Interested in literature. Although the classics did not bring any substantial influence or turning point on the narrative of the novel, and did not seem to be the teaching of Juliet's life, Juliet's life has always been in a state of intertextuality with the classics, and they are the place of her reverie , is a criterion in her eyes.
Classics is not forgotten in the film version: Julieta interacts naturally with adolescent students in the classics class she teaches, teaching themes in ancient Greek writings—the quest for "permanent youth"; She excelled in teaching and tried to return to teaching from a housewife after many years; her love for classical mythology also became the beginning of her friendship with her friend Ava. Although "classics" still exists in the film, it seems to be in an existence that can be replaced by other humanities, and "classics" in the film is more like a romantic factor; especially in the second half of the film, In Julieta's life after she gave up her search for a daughter, "classics" was completely wiped out and replaced by her new boyfriend, and the various cultural events they often attended together - Almodóvar presents a woman Cultural industry practitioners. In such an expression, even though the emotion is still strong, the emotion of the characters has lost the outward extension space and the background color of the support.
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Almodovar's simplified treatment of characters' emotions is not only reflected in the downplaying of "classics". The structure of the narrative, the perspective, and the motivations of the characters all simplify the complex character states of the original.
In a nutshell, Julieta tells the story of a "mother-daughter reconciliation". Daughter Anieta blamed herself and her mother for her father's death. After many years of accumulation, she left without warning. After more than ten years, Anieta, who became a mother and experienced the pain of losing her son, understood that she was separated from her children. pain, and regained contact with his mother. Therefore, "Julietta" is actually a parent-child story, in which both mother and daughter are introverted characters, unable to let go of their past mistakes caused by chance or their own fault, and silently burdened with their own "Sin", unconsciously using depression and hurting each other as a way of self-punishment.
Although the motives at the core of "self-blame" continue to unfold the narrative, Almodóvar seems to have no intention to explore the ethical mechanism of this emotion - what is behind this "self-blame"? Where is its limit? ——It focuses on showing us the impact of "self-blame" on people. This is intuitively reflected in Julieta's shape, from the delicate appearance at the beginning (by then she had given up looking for her daughter and started a new life) to the increasingly unconcerned appearance, until the final pale and haggard, "Since Blame” and a series of behaviors derived from self-blame destroyed Juliet’s life.
From the point of view of "self-blame", Almodovar's story is almost a complete rewrite of the original work: "self-blame" has no reason for the novelist's daughter to run away, and its discussion only appears in the heroine and her husband On the train journey they met; and, Monroe's description of "self-blame" is more cautious and rich. The novelist focuses on the boundary between "self-blame" and "self-moving", and does not regard "self-blame" as the most important. Fundamental character motivation.
Similar to the movie, in the original train journey, when the heroine finds out that the man who killed himself was a down-and-out man she had previously refused to talk to, Eric/Suan offers consolation:
Juliet feels Ashamed, tears welled up in her eyes. It happened so suddenly that she didn't even have time to turn her eyes away.
...and tell him exactly what happened before. Said how the man bent over and asked if there was anyone in the seat opposite her, how he sat down, and how she kept looking at the scenery outside the window, and she couldn't look anymore, so she tried or pretended to lower her head Read her book, but he also asked where she got in the car, and also asked which city she lived in now, and was so eager to carry on the conversation that she had to pack up and leave her.
...
"It's definitely easier to stop a woman from talking," he said, "than a man." The
film stops at this interaction and begins to move in a very different direction from the novel, "No one will do anything because of a girl. Suicide without talking to yourself, even if it is a beautiful girl like you", Su An said in the movie, the discussion between the two turned from the discussion of moral issues to eroticism and ambiguity, and it was logical to accompany the train of movement Had romantic sex with snow outside the window. As the movie's plot develops toward the popular and moving, the novel goes like this:
"It's probably the last straw," she said, now a little defensively, "probably yes."
"I I think you'll pay more attention in the future."
Juliet lifted her chin and stared at him fixedly.
"You're saying I'm exaggerating."
...
"I think this is a little extreme."
"It's a little bit," he said.
"You think I'm dramatizing it?"
"That's natural, too."
"But you think it's a mistake," she said, controlling her laughter. , "Do you think guilt is just a form of self-indulgence?"
"My feeling is—" he said, "I don't feel like it matters. There are other things going on in your life—some Maybe it's in your life—it's pretty irrelevant by comparison. What other things do you feel guilty about?"
"But isn't that what people say all the time, by contrast? Young people yourself? They say, oh, one day you won't think about that anymore. You wait and see. Like you don't have the right to have any serious feelings. Like you don't have the ability to do so "
Emotions," he said. "I was talking about experience."
"But aren't you saying that guilt is useless? Everyone says that. Isn't it?"
"It's you . Said."
From the emotional state of being immersed in "guilt" into the discussion of "guilt": is it a form of self-indulgence? How do people view it? Where should it be in life? But Monroe is not seeking truth on these issues, her focus is that characters use "guilt" as an opportunity to interact and dialogue with themselves and others: Juliet and Eric become familiar in the conversation Get up, become friends, and together they go to the observation deck to look at the stars, with vague feelings, but also embarrassing and regrettable words and actions.
"Guilty"—or some other state of mind—is not a "cause" in a conclusive, causal explanatory framework. Monroe makes it impossible for us to identify an emotional state, and then plunge into it and indulge our own sadness and sorrow; whether it is "guilt" or "love", the emotions in Munro's pen are like flames, always changing, wander. She reminds us to pay attention, to be vigilant, but not in a warning look and tone.
But Monroe is not without certainties:
Maybe she couldn't face how to explain it to me. Or she really didn't have time to explain. You know, we always think there's a reason for this, there's a reason for that, and we're always trying to find a reason. And I can also tell you that there are many things I did wrong. But I think the reason may not be so easy to find out. More likely it was something to do with her pure nature. Yes, there are some delicate, strict and pure aspects of her nature, a rock-solid quality of honesty.
At the end of the novel, the daughter does not reply, and Juliet does not fall into grief and depression because of the new news about her. She was thrilled to hear the news, but she continued her research life. She thinks about it, she firmly believes in nature, and at the same time believes that cause and effect are too many to directly correspond, and she also holds out hope, "like more worldly people waiting for indiscriminate ideas."
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